The voice of the pilots is clear – the platform is working exceptionally. The F-35 is a platform with the ultimate level of sophistication, made simple. And therein lay the beauty of the F-35, and just why it will be so deadly, it’s simple. The combined F-35 fleet now has over 75,000 flight hours, yet many continue to question the performance and value of the aircraft. Much of this can be expected given early program challenges, and the reality that many of the F-35s capabilities are classified. Add that many do not grasp the war the F-35 was designed to...

Ukraine's Antonov aircraft maker suggested US President-elect Donald Trump should order Air Force One from Ukraine, a message on the official Twitter page of the company said, TASS reports. "Maybe it would be better to consider an Antonov aircraft as Air Force One?" the tweet said. The state-run Antonov aircraft building plant is Ukraine's only developer and manufacturer of cargo and passenger aircraft. The company is best known for such aircraft as AN-32, AN-148, AN-158, AN-74, AN-124, AN-70 and AN-225. The company did not specify which aircraft exactly they would like to propose to the new President of the United...

Not even for Air Force One Defense contractors were pretty excited when Donald Trump won the election, figuring it was fat and happy time once again for defense spending. And if happy time means the Pentagon will once again be willing to fund what the nation needs for its defense, then there should indeed by plenty of smiles to go around. As for the fat part, defense contractors are used to the idea that cost overruns are no issue with the Pentagon because whatever they order they have to have, and have right away. The cost-is-no-object approach to national security...

Hours after Donald Trump promised to kill the Air Force One procurement program, Boeing Chief Executive Dennis A. Muilenburg spoke with the president-elect on Tuesday, promising to work with the new administration and to keep the costs of the program down, according to a person with knowledge of the matter...

Is this the Art of the Deal coming into play, or a stand against gouging by defense contractors? Despite insisting on the latest in luxury as a private citizen, Donald Trump seems to be saying no to a new fleet of presidential aircraft. He tweeted earlier today that the contract for replacing Air Force One should be canceled due to spiraling costs: Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!â€” Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 6, 2016 Over the past few months,...

Six weeks from taking office, Donald Trump says he wants the government to cut some costs by canceling its order for a new Air Force One, the plane that carries presidents around the globe. The government has contracted with Boeing to build two or more new planes, which would go into service around 2024. That means Trump wouldn’t fly on the new planes unless he pursued and won a second term. But the Air Force has pressed for a faster schedule, saying the current planes are becoming too expensive to repair and keep in good flying shape. The contract for...

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday ripped Boeing for the cost of a new Air Force One plane, calling for the contract to be cancelled. "Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!" Trump tweeted.

Earlier this year, Lockheed Martin offered to shift manufacturing of F-16 fighter jets from Fort Worth to India if it wins a big contract to build hundreds of planes for the country. Now some are wondering whether the Trump administration will allow such a deal to proceed. “What will be the U.S. policy posture now that the new president-elect is in the mix?” one high-level official at an American defense firm in India told The Washington Post, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Is he going to continue the policy of engaging in India on co-production and co-development? All of...

Sunday’s cabinet decision to approve the acquisition of 17 F-35s for the Israel Air Force is a belated, necessary result to the partial decision the previous government made nearly three years ago. Then, only a partial equipping was approved in an unusual step that would have left the IAF at the end of the acquisition process with a squadron and a half. It would have been an operational hybrid, which would likely not allow long-term planning and conducting of missions on an ongoing basis. According to the decision, the IAF will have a full complement of two squadrons by 2021...

Famous Russian aircraft designer, co-creator of the MiG-29 fighter jet Ivan Mikoyan has died aged 89, Russian Rossiya-24 TV channel reports. "All his life Ivan Mikoyan worked at the design bureau founded by his uncle, Artem Mikoyan, in 1939. He was a leading engineer and deputy chief designer," a statement published by the "Zvezda" TV channel said. Ivan Mikoyan was born on September 1, 1927, in the USSR. His father, Anastas Mikoyan (1895-1978) was a government figure, while his uncle, Anastas’ brother Artem Mikoyan (1905-1970), was the first general designer of the experimental design bureau MiG. Ivan graduated from a...

The Indian Air Force (IAF) took a vital step on Wednesday towards boosting its dwindling fleet of combat aircraft. As MiG-21s and MiG-27s retire, forcing the IAF to close down squadrons, a new avionics upgrade for the nuclear-capable Jaguar strike fighter will let it fly for another two decades. This is Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd’s (HAL’s) new DARIN-III (Darin Three) “navigation-attack" system that allows the Jaguar to do pinpoint bombing. The DARIN-III allows a pilot to feed in the co-ordinates of targets deep inside enemy territory. Once airborne, the computer’s inertial navigation system directs the pilot to the target, telling him...

China’s aim to develop aerial weaponry tailored to target American force-multiplying aerial assets, like tankers and sensor aircraft, may have just appeared in another tangible form—a relatively huge and previously unseen air-to-air missile. For years, I have posited that China would develop highly focused capabilities to counter specific but glaring weaknesses in America’s high-tech and increasingly networked expeditionary war fighting machine and battle doctrine. This pertains specifically to developing weapons and tactics used to attack low-density but high-value flying assets. China’s J-20 stealth fighter-interceptor is part of this strategy. It’s a simple premise really, one that we have discussed many...

Boeing Co. moved closer to extending the life of its combat-jet production lines with the State Department’s approval of sales to Kuwait and Qatar worth up to $31.2 billion combined. With that barrier cleared Thursday, the long-delayed deals now go before Congress for final approval. Lawmakers have already been informally briefed, allowing the Pentagon and Boeing to press ahead with completing terms for the government-to-government transaction. Qatar wants to buy as many as 72 Boeing F-15 fighters that together with weapons and support could be worth $21.1 billion, the Pentagon said. However, Qatar could still split any buy between Boeing...

The Soyuz rocket that will launch three new Expedition 50 crew members to space Thursday was blessed at its launch pad today. Back in space, the Canadarm2 grappled the Cygnus cargo craft ahead of its release early next week.An Orthodox priest performed the traditional blessing of the Soyuz MS-03 spacecraft today before its launch to the International Space Station. Peggy Whitson of NASA, Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos and Thomas Pesquet of ESA are in quarantine at the Cosmonaut Hotel in Kazakhstan and are scheduled to liftoff Thursday at 3:20 p.m. EST on a two-day trip to their new home in...

ST LOUIS: Proposing the setting up of a new, futuristic factory for an upcoming Make in India fighter program, Boeing has said that it is in talks with multiple Indian stakeholders to gear it for the production of the indigenous advanced medium combat aircraft (AMCA). Detailing its plan for the Make in India contest – India wants to produce 100-200 fighters domestically with technology transfer to meet deficiencies in the fleet – Boeing has said that it is in talks with several Indian companies to select a partner but the final decision would depend on the government’s strategic partnership model....

In a backseat ride over New Hampshire, the Eagle shows why it’s still lethal, yet increasingly expensive. WESTFIELD, Massachusetts — The F-15C Eagle weighs about 16 tons, but with nearly 47,000 pounds of thrust pushing it down the runway it feels more like 16 ounces. In a just seconds, the plane passes 100 miles per hour, then twice that. It hops off the ground but the pilot, Maj. Jay “Fat” Talbert keeps it level, fifty feet up, and pours on more speed. “Here come the G’s,” Talbert warns his passenger in the back seat. Then he pulls back the stick....

DENVER -- Thousands saw a plane circling the Denver metro area late Wednesday morning, questioning where it may have come from and what it may be doing. Officials at a host of federal organizations had few answers. Denver7 began tracking a flight named IRON99 as it traversed from California over the pacific. It traveled over the Rocky Mountains and eventually over the Denver metro area. Its arrival over the Denver metro is what prompted questions from a host of locals who saw it circling, questioning what it might have been doing. Visually, the plane circled in a racetrack-style oval shape...

Boeing will shift more than 2,400 jobs out of its Huntington Beach facility over the next four years, the aerospace giant announced Tuesday, slicing in half the number of workers at the sprawling campus. A nationwide streamlining of operations at the company’s Defense, Space & Security division will result in the transfer of 300 Huntington Beach jobs to its Seal Beach facility and 1,600 positions to its plants in Long Beach and El Segundo. Another 500 jobs will move to St. Louis. And an additional 400 will move to Huntsville, Ala., from Huntington Beach and other facilities around the country.

ItÂ’s generally accepted that it was two U.S. Navy F-14 crews who scored the first aerial victories in the powerful, twin-engine fighterâ€ŠÂ—â€Šwhen on Aug. 19, 1981, a pair of Tomcats from squadron VF-41 shot down two Libyan Sukhoi Su-22s that had opened fire at them over the Gulf of Sidra. ThatÂ’s the conception. As is often the case in the history of aerial warfare, the truth is significantly different. An Iranian F-14 crew actually scored the TomcatÂ’s first kill.

RussiaÂ’s R-77 active-radar-homing air-to-air missileâ€ŠÂ—â€ŠNATO designation AA-12â€ŠÂ—â€Šis widely considered to be equivalent to the American AIM-120 AMRAAM. But in fact, the R-77 isnÂ’t nearly as successful as the AIM-102. It may never have formally entered service with the Russian air force at all. In the best case, the number of operational, combat-ready rounds in the Russian arsenal can be counted on the fingers of two hands. What used to be the Vympel Design Bureauâ€ŠÂ—â€Šnow known as the KTRV Corporationâ€ŠÂ—â€Šstarted the work on the K-77, as it was then designated, in 1982, only for the Kremlin to more or less cancel...

China's JL-9 trainer aircraft Sudan has ordered Six FTC-2000 jet trainers, which are the export version of China's JL-9 aircraft, from Guizhou Aircraft Industries Corporation (GAIC). The deal was disclosed by Guizhou Aircraft Industries Corporation (GAIC) director Wang Wenfei, during an interview with China Aviation News on 3 November. Though Sudan is the only known export customer for the FTC-2000, “other African countries, including Nigeria, were also considering acquiring the type," Wafei was quoted as saying by DefenceWeb Friday. Aviation Industries Corporation of China (AVIC) officials had told IHS Jane’s during 2015 Paris Airshow that an African country had ordered...

The Israeli air force (IAF) is integrating the Rafael Spice 1000 precision bomb onto its Lockheed Martin F-16C/D aircraft. Spice 1000 is a 453kg (1,000lb) bomb equipped with a guidance kit, with pop-out wings that extend its range to more than 100km (54nm). The IAF's F-16C/D fleet belongs to the "First Squadron" that operates from Ramat David air base in the north of Israel, which is currently performing the acceptance tests of the weapon system. This follows assessments carried out by the IAF’s test squadron. The IAF expects to reach full operational capability with the Spice 1000 in the coming...

China's largest missile-maker is promoting what it calls "the world's best anti-ship missile" for sales in the international market. China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, one of the main defense equipment suppliers in the nation, is marketing its CM-302 supersonic anti-ship cruise missile to nations hoping to improve their naval capabilities. CM-302 is the best anti-ship missile available on the world's arms market and "it's not an exaggeration", said Lyu Xiaoge, spokesman for the State-owned defense technology giant, who spoke to China Daily on the sidelines of the 2016 Zhuhai Airshow. The justification for the statement is that the missile...

Just a day after new imagery surfaced of China’s “other” stealth fighter, the Shenyang FC-31, photos have emerged that give us the best look yet of the Z-20, Beijing’s shadowy H-60/S-70 Black Hawk clone. The Z-20, which has been an elusive beast since taking its first flight a couple years ago, differs from the Black Hawk in a number of small ways. Noticible changes include the cockpit area shaping, changes to its tail configuration, and above all, its rotor design. The Z-20 has five rotors instead of the four found on the Black Hawk. A satellite communications array, or at...

Will Super Hornets bridge IAF's 200-aircraft gap? November 04, 2016 15:11 IST Boeing expects the IAF to soon place an inquiry for twin-engine fighter jets to bridge a 200-aircraft gap in its armoury. And the Super Hornet is ready to fly in, reports Ajai Shukla. The Indian Air Force has already approached major global fighter vendors, inviting them to build single-engine, medium fighters in India.Now the spotlight is expanding to encompass heavier, twin-engine fighters as well.On Thursday, November 3, Pratyush Kumar, president, Boeing India revealed that he expected a second inquiry from the IAF, asking international manufactures for interest...

China's new J-20 stealth fighter jet bears similarities to an experimental prototype for a fifth-generation fighter jet produced by Russia's MiG aircraft corporation, the deputy editor of Russian military magazine "Arsenal of the Fatherland" Dmitry Drozdenko told Sputnik. China unveiled two Chengdu J-20 stealth fighters at the Zhuhai air show in Beijing on Tuesday. While the exact specifications of the aircraft remain under wraps, to all appearances the jets have been designed to match the stealth capabilities of fifth-generation fighter aircraft such as the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor and Russia's Sukhoi PAK FA. Drozdenko told Sputnik that the J-20 he...

During the exercises, scheduled for between 1:30 to 3:30 p.m., the public may see low-flying NORAD-controlled fighter jets near civilian aircraft, the agency said. The fighter pilots will be practicing intercept and identification procedures with the civilians, who are helping with the training. “In order to test responses, systems and equipment, NORAD continuously conducts exercises with a variety of scenarios, including airspace-restriction violations, hijackings and responding to unknown aircraft,” the agency said.

A new examination of skeletal remains found on a remote Pacific island three years after the trailblazing pilot went missing suggest she died as a castaway — not in a plane crash, the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery reported.

Legendary aviator Amelia Earhart was attempting to become the first female pilot to fly around the world when her plane disappeared over the Pacific Ocean in 1937. Last month, the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) proposed the theory that she landed her plane safely on a remote island and died as a castaway. Now, scientists say a new discovery shows a striking similarity between the pilot and the partial skeleton of a castaway found on an island of Kiribati in 1940.

As expected, the J-20 stealth fighter made its public debut at the Zhuhai Air Show today. Thought the Chinese government has largely kept silent about the J-20 over its last half decade of flight tests, a pair of the jets went screaming high over the runway at Jinwan Airport before splitting up via a dramatic cross-over break. Then a single J-20 came back for more passes, climbs and turns. Although some spectators may have been a little disappointed that the display did not last longer, or feature a wider flight envelope and aircraft configuration changes (such as a flyby...

China will publicly present its new stealth fighter jet for the first time at an air show next week, the Chinese air force revealed Friday. The J-20 will be unveiled next week at Airshow China 2016 in Zhuhai, Guangdong. The J-20 and J-31 fighter jets are designed to close the gap between American and Chinese air power. The Pentagon said that the two fifth generation fighters will permit the evolution of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), allowing the transition from a defensive territorial force to one with the ability to carry out offensive strikes, reports Reuters. The...

One of the greatest pilots in the history of aviation died this morning, according to reports. Bob Hoover, a World War II fighter pilot, a former Air Force test pilot, and the chase plane pilot for Chuck Yeager when he broke the sound barrier for the first time, was 94.

Mark Twain probably didn’t make the famous quip, “History doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes,” but the phrase’s sentiment often feels right. In discussing British independence, U.S. nuclear policy, strategic-weapons upgrades and a fraying “special relationship,” we could be discussing current events—or those of a half-century ago. In the late 1950s, Britain’s defense establishment faced some grim realities. The empire and its wealth were no more, and nuclear weapons were very costly. Although UK scientists played major roles in the Manhattan Project, postwar espionage and U.S. mistrust of the British led to a chill in collaboration and to the UK’s...

Frank Royal's Air Force took off at 1:38 p.m. A vintage aircraft clawed through the air followed by two chase planes, one carrying the 101-year-old pilot. The last plane in the formation brought a tear to Royal's eye. Its sleek lines still raise his pulse. He can hear the thrum of its twin engines without his hearing aids - World War II ingrained the 24-cylinder symphony permanently in his mind. He has good reason to remember the details. That very plane, a fully restored P-38 Lightning named White-33, was Royal's first love. And he flew over Colorado Springs to tell...

The contest to supply the Indian Air Force (IAF) a single-engine, medium fighter is currently playing out as a two-horse race. US giant, Lockheed Martin, is the Goliath looking to slay the David that is Swedish firm, Saab. Lockheed Martin, which has offered to shift its F-16 production line to India, is the world's biggest defence firm, with $46.1 billion in sales last year and an order backlog of almost $100 billion. Saab, which has offered its latest fighter, the Gripen E, appears a relative minnow, with $3 billion in sales last year, and an order book of $12.9 billion....

Textron AirLand’s Scorpion light attack fighter has demonstrated its close air support capability for the first time during a weapons exercise at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Operating from Holloman AFB in New Mexico, the developmental aircraft launched three different munitions during tests that ran from 10-14 October. Under evaluation were Hydra-70 unguided 2.75 in rockets, the BAE Systems Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, and Lockheed Martin AGM-114F Hellfire missile. Weapons guidance was supported by the aircraft’s L-3 Wescam MX-15Di sensor and a ground-based laser designator, Textron says. The time taken from design and integration to flight testing...

China’s J-20 has been an internet star for half a decade. It first appeared in late 2010 in grainy photos taken from the fenceline at Chengdu Aircraft Industrial Group’s plant. It first flew just as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who long shorted China’s ability to put into operation such an aircraft, was meeting with Chinese officials in Beijing. Since then the jet has made clear progress, with apparent design changes occurring as the aircraft progressed from prototype to pre-production stages. Now the J-20 will follow in the footsteps of its simpler and smaller cousin, the stealthy J-31, and be...

The long-awaited launch of an Orbital ATK Antares rocket carrying cargo to the International Space Station today has been delayed until Monday, a 24-hour slip, due to a glitch with ground support equipment, NASA officials said Sunday (Oct. 16). Antares is now scheduled to launch Monday (Oct. 17) at 7:40 p.m. EDT (2340 GMT) from Pad-0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility here. "Today's launch of Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket is postponed 24 hours due to a ground support equipment (GSE) cable that did not perform as expected during the pre-launch check out," Keith Koehler, a...

Engineers erected a commercial Antares rocket vertical on its launch pad on Virginia’s Eastern Shore Friday, positioning the 13-story booster for liftoff Sunday night with more than 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments for the International Space Station. With a Cygnus supply ship enclosed in its nose cone, the rocket rolled out of its Horizontal Integration Facility on a self-propelled transporter starting around 5:12 p.m. EDT (2112 GMT) Thursday for the mile-long journey to launch pad 0A on Wallops Island, Virginia. Orbital ATK’s ground team secured the rocket after reaching the seaside launch pad at dusk, then hoisted the booster...

The F-117 Nighthawk [3] made a definite impression on both Iraqi air defenses and the American public when it demonstrated the capabilities of stealth technology in the 1991 Gulf War [4]. Yet the iconic jet-black attack plane was ultimately left behind by improvements in technology and retired in 2008 in favor of the new F-22 stealth fighter [5]. But what if the Nighthawk design had been evolved into a carrier-based multi-role fighter capable of flying longer distances at higher speed with a greater weapon load? In fact, Lockheed proposed exactly such a “Seahawk” in the early 90s. The original F-117’s...

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, a Dynamic Duo symbolized U.S. military airpower. The Air Force had its powerful F-15 Eagle air superiority fighter. But the Navy had the sophisticated swing-wing F-14 Tomcat, glamorized by the movie Top Gun. Yet had events worked out differently, the aircraft that Tom Cruise flew could have been an… F-15 Eagle? For a time, the Navy actually considered a carrier version of the F-15. The F-15N, or "Sea Eagle" as it was unofficially dubbed, was proposed by McDonnell Douglas in 1971, according to author Dennis Jenkins in his "McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle: Supreme Heavy-Weight...

Syrian Air Force Mikoyan MiG-29 (NATO reporting name: Fulcrum) fighter jets are performing sorties with medium-range air-to-air missiles of the R-77 (AA-12 Adder) family. Syrian Radio & TV Agency has broadcasted a video showing the attaching of an air-launched weapon of this type to a MiG-29 plane. The video shows a R-77-family missile (most probably, an export version of the missile, i.e. RVV-SD) being carried by an under-wing AKU-170E ejection unit of a MiG-29 plane. The video has confirmed media reports that Russia repaired and upgraded several Syrian Air Force MiG-29 fighter jets. According to data of public sources, the...

While India may have signed a deal Friday with French aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation SA for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets, credit analyst firm Moody’s Investors Service expects U.S. fighter jet makers like The Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) and Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE: LMT) to begin more aggressively pursuing India as a sales opportunity. As Moody’s aerospace and defense analyst Russell Solomon told me Wednesday, India likely isn’t done buying fighters. Even if India decides to exercise an option against the Rafale contract for 18 more, in the next five to 10 years Solomon said, “Somewhere between another...

The head of Qatar Airways firmly denied that the company delayed a deal to buy up to 100 jetliners from The Boeing Co. to pressure the U.S. to approve the sale of fighter jets to Qatar. The comments from Akbar Al Baker came Friday during a news conference in D.C. in which state-owned Qatar Airlines and Boeing inked an $18.6 billion deal for 30 Dreamliners and up to 80 other jets. "We don’t relate anything to anything,” Al Baker said when asked by a reporter about possible connection. "Qatar Airways has this independent policy ordering airplanes. So nothing is attached...

An F-16 fighter jet that crashed during a landing attempt in southern Israel Wednesday, killing its pilot, may have been flying “asymmetrically,” with ordnance on one wing but not the other, an expert said Thursday, as the army probed what caused the fiery wreck and its fatal results. Eran Ramot, a former fighter pilot and researcher at the Fisher Institute for Air and Strategic Studies, said the asymmetry was currently the leading theory for what caused the wreck, which killed Maj. Ohad Cohen Nov. However, that alone should not have caused a crash, as planes and pilots routinely fly with...

Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg believes that it's his company that's sending the first humans to Mars, not SpaceX. At a Chicago event sponsored by The Atlantic, Muilenberg declared that he's "convinced the first person to step foot on Mars will arrive there riding a Boeing rocket." SpaceX chief Elon Musk recently laid out his grans plans to ferry people to the red planet aboard the Interplanetary Transport System, a powerful ship the company's already working on. While Boeing has comparatively been quieter, Muilenburg isn't just all talk. The older aerospace corporation has been working with NASA to build the Space...

A U.S. Marine Corps F-35B takes off from USS Â‘WaspÂ’ in 2011. Marine Corps photo Cavour, ItalyÂ’s only aircraft carrier, is designed to accommodate up to 12 F-35B stealth jump jets. In theory. In reality, actually operating the stealth fighters requires Cavour to undergo some significant modifications. Although conceptually similar to the smaller Harrier jump jet that already flies from Cavour, the Lockheed Martin F-35B produces much more heat than the older Boeing fighter does. During takeoff and landing, the F-35BÂ’s thrust peaks at 186 kilonewtons. By contrast, the most powerful engine ever installed in a Harrier, the Pegasus 11-61/Mk.107,...